With these 8 must-have apps for geography, not only will students learn the capital of Burkina Faso (it’s Ouagadougou by the way), but they will learn a lot of geographical facts, as well as information that will help them navigate and better...

In a recent survey of 1,550 US professionals on the impact of content curation for their business goals, 65% said content curation helped with regards to SEO. Not only that but data from 65M+ pieces of content curated on the Scoop.it platform show that an average of 40% of traffic comes from Google Search.

This presentation explains why and outlines content curation best practices for SEO.

If you understand the power of #content #curation you will do more of it. The statistics show how Curating Content can play a big part in Search Engine Optimization. The right level of participation brings more exposure.com

In a recent survey of 1,550 US professionals on the impact of content curation for their business goals, 65% said content curation helped with regards to SEO. Not only that but data from 65M+ pieces of content curated on the Scoop.it platform show that an average of 40% of traffic comes from Google Search.

This presentation explains why and outlines content curation best practices for SEO.

Digital literacy is about more than just adding technology into the teaching we already do. The following common teaching practices that we have seen in classrooms as researchers and as parents of school-age children do not help develop digital literacy and may even kill students’ motivation to develop their savvy use of technology and the Internet. We must stop these practices. Immediately.

Bonnie I agree parents are important today so many seem to be tuned out to the needs of there children, it is a lot more than just material needs, that parents need to provide, and with the prevalence of single parent homes, it is even harder. I feel as much for the parent of these homes as I do for the children it can not be easy wearing all the hats.

I have long hours of work in places where the parents did not or would not participate. Sometimes they did not know. Some groups like Wired Safety , have Mom groups.. or PTA groups. Thanks for your comment.

I have long hours of work in places where the parents did not or would not participate. Sometimes they did not know. Some groups like Wired Safety , have Mom groups.. or PTA groups. Thanks for your comment.

The famous rivalry between Google and Apple is finding its way into schools, and Google is looking to dethrone the famous iPad with its new Google Play for Education, a suite of apps and management tools that will be available to teachers and...

When the majority of information moves from print to digital form, we need a new set of critical skills in order to find what we need and use if properly. Many students get to college without having learned much in the way of information literacy, although professors often expect it was already taught. How should schools teach kids about finding good materials for research? About plagiarism? About finding authoritative sources online?

Niche-specific content is usually not readily available through regular generic search engines. One example is the academic and scholarly content. While running a search query about an academic topic through a generic search engine such as Google would probably render fairly decent results, it, however, usually takes digging into so much fluff before finally landing on relevant results. This is where having access to topic-specific search engines comes in handy. Such search engines do not only provide specific content tailored to the topic under study but their content is more likely to be reliable and authoritative. To this end, we have compiled this list of excellent academic search engines that teachers, student researchers and academics can use to quickly locate and access scholarly works and publications. We have only included what we believe are the most relevant and popular titles out there.

When students are doing research, they sometimes struggle with citing their sources or moving beyond a quick search with Google.com. The Google Docs Research Pane helps to facilitate searching for and citing sources. By going to Tools –> Research, the Research Pane pops up on the right hand side! You can search Google, images, scholar, quotes, and dictionary! By dragging and dropping certain content (e.g. images), not only will the material appear, but a footnote (in MLA, Chicago, or APA format).

Content curation is not just collecting, it's also sharing. And whatever our motivation, we curate content to have an impact so understanding where our traffic comes from is important. During our first 2 years of existence, the Scoop.it users have published more than 50M pieces of content attracting more than 100M unique visitors so we've been in a great position to observe not only where this traffic came from but also what best practices had the strongest influence on it. So we’ve analyzed all the content curated, published and shared through Scoop.it. This post is about sharing these data and learnings so you can be more effective with your content curation. Continue reading →

If you can do it with paper why use a digital alternative? Because for some of students, it makes the difference between engagement and being switched off. Of couse finding the activities that you just can't do with paper...that's the real power of a digital solution.

Don't be afraid of social media when you can learn how to use it in your classroom. This reasource is a great find for educators that may want to use social media but just do not know where to incorporate it.

Excerpt from article written and curated by Robin Good and first published on MasterNewMedia:"Content curation tools are in their infancy. Nonetheless you see so many of them around, there are more new curation tools coming your way soon, with lots of new features and options.

Enormous progress has been made since the early days of the first news curation tools to what is available today, but yet, I feel we have only barely scratched the surface.

To illustrate what I expect to see on this front, here is a panoramic tour of the traits, features, patterns and trends that I expect will characterize the future of digital content curation tools, organized into specific feature areas.

1) Display Formats of Curated Content CollectionsThe first area in which I expect to see lots of improvement and innovative ideas is the one of how a curated collection or stream can be displayed to the user.This is one of the most underestimated and underutilized areas of improvement for content curation tools.

2) Slicing and DicingSome of the present-day content curation tools, including Scoop.it, Spundge and several others, do allow you to tag and filter content but none provides a direct facility to easily create sub-sets that gather together collection items with the same characteristics.

3) Micro - MacroOne other badly needed feature, that I hope will see its way in some of the leading content curation tools, is the ability to instantly switch from a bird’s eye view of a topic to the detailed view of a specific information item.

4) RecurateAnother area that offers great opportunities for innovation and for the introduction of new useful features is the one covering the ability to assess, managing inventories, organize and curate one’s own existing assets.

5) News DiscoveryThe main problem with news discovery arises from the fact that quality filters and algorithms capable of both fully understanding the topic of interest, not just by way of a keyword or a hashtag but by semantic inference, and capable of identifying the relevant sources among so many noise-making content marketers reposting other people stuff, are not easy to build.The best way to uncover, identify and identify new quality sources and content items may be to employ a balanced mix of automated search filters augmented by human curators that can supervise, edit, refine and improve on what is gathered by the algos.

6) OwnershipThe main benefit offered by content curation platforms that require you to curate and publish first via their systems (Scoop.it, Pinterest, etc.) is that they provide you with an existing broad audience readily interested in your content. For someone just starting out online, this can be a huge booster.The con side of the equation is that your rights on what you have curated as well as the physical ownership of that content is not under your control anymore. And for those already having good visibility and reputation online, this may not be the most attractive proposition.

7) Credit and AttributionFor professional curators the need to properly and systematically credit and attribute the content and sources utilized is not a secondary matter. Discovery of new interesting content is at the heart of the curator job, and facilitating the exchange on meta-data that provides credit and hints as to who has been of help in discovering something will increasingly be a highly valued activity..."

With billions of people connected through social media and directly connected with email traditional curators of news and other content have had their business models destroyed but it has not surprisingly taken many years for better models to emerge.

The widsom of crowds is well known but so is their stupidity (stock market crashes, group think, lowest common denominator in election outcomes...). Better curating tools and systems are beginning to show that valuable curators of the worlds content are able to find their audience and enrich the world with deep insight that replace the extremely low numbers of curators of the past (news paper barons).

Some of these curators will be paid and others do it just for the joy of it. Collectively they will reshape thinking and ultimately the world.

Scoop.it is a great platform for curating web based content and collecting together your own portfolio or reading lists to share with the world. One of my major problems though with Scoop.it, used to be finding the articles and links I had saved and searching for useful articles on other Scoop.it.

What is Google Drive? A complete guide how to use it.Cloud (storage), Creation, Collaboration, CommunicationHow to access Google Drive, including from Google+Cloud storage:Left hand bar optionsUploading files or folders from your computerLooking under the drop downs: Drive content and MoreShared with you: you can add these docs to your Drive tooChoosing how to 'sort' the contentChanging from grid to list viewChanging display in settingsSearching within Drive e.g. searching for PDFs and keywordsHow to add a new folder and add files into itHow to enter a folder and remove files by dragging them out'Checking' a folder/file to show more options e.g. move a folderChoosing multiple files, or selecting 'all' from a folderHow to remove a folder/file - i.e. put into trashAdding colours to a folderAdding starsIntroduction - sharing a fileHow to open a file; or choosing 'open with'How to preview a fileSelecting several images to preview in a lightboxMoving a selection of filesCreation:Choosing to create documents, files, presentations etcNaming the documentFiles save automaticallyHow to download as e.g. a PDF - taking it out of DriveCollaboration:Taking comments and changesChanging the languageHow to give access to peopleSeeing who has access alreadyAdding in email addressChoosing nature of access e.g. ability to edit a documentEmailing the person with whom you are collaboratingChanging from 'private' to e.g. only people with the link or making it public.Giving access to a team/circle of peopleSharing the link to that groupDeciding whether to send them an emailIndividuals icons will appear in upper right

Using a Google Hangout with the Google Drive appCommunication:'Share icon' - appearing in several placesSame box as previously, but now can share it to several social networksYou can just choose 'view'How to send out via TwitterHow the presentation becomes embedded within the messageThe form/presentation etc. can be viewed from the Google+ postThen 'share'Sharing images from Drive to Google+Changing the editing rightsSending the image into a communityHow to 'publish to the web'How to embed that file's code into a website, including the size of the presentationHow to 'stop publishing'The four elements: Cloud, Creation, Collaboration, Communication

A useful video tutorial here, just over 16 minutes long. It runs through the basics of using Google drive and how you can use it to collaborate with others. It also touches on Google Hangout.

I use Google Drive with my students as a writing space because I teach English via Skype. It suits our needs perfectly. Students create several folders e.g. some are homework spaces; collaborative areas such as wikis; creative writing pages and as a virtual space that we can jump into during the lesson to work on activities. It works for us. As a teacher I can dip into shared spaces at any time and guide and support learning which is a real advantage.

This is a really thorough tutorial and very timely as I'm currently exploring using Google Drive with students. Our dispersed team of Learning Technologists already use it for collaboration but there is not much use as yet by our academics and students. The ability to be able to integrate Drive with Google Hangouts is really powerful and has the potential to be a great tool for supporting Distance Learning.

"In today’s hypermedia landscape, youth and young adults are increasingly using social media platforms, online aggregators and mobile applications for daily information use. Communication educators, armed with a host of free, easy-to-use online tools, have the ability to create dynamic approaches to teaching and learning about information and communication flow online. In this paper we explore the concept of curation as a student- and creation-driven pedagogical tool to enhance digital and media literacy education. We present a theoretical justification for curation and present six key ways that curation can be used to teach about critical thinking, analysis and expression online. We utilize a case study of the digital curation platform Storify to explore how curation works in the classroom, and present a framework that integrates curation pedagogy into core media literacy education learning outcomes.!

For upper HS teachers. I have been grappling with the value of "curation" for a while now. Basically, curation without commentary is, I think, like collecting recipes one will never cook. This article presents a way to use the online tool Storify (http://storify.com/) to make the curation of content meaningful (both to the collector and to an audience). I'm still not sure I buy it - but the author is correct that this an educational trend that should be embraced and encouraged, not ignored.

Sharing your scoops to your social media accounts is a must to distribute your curated content. Not only will it drive traffic and leads through your content, but it will help show your expertise with your followers.

Integrating your curated content to your website or blog will allow you to increase your website visitors’ engagement, boost SEO and acquire new visitors. By redirecting your social media traffic to your website, Scoop.it will also help you generate more qualified traffic and leads from your curation work.

Distributing your curated content through a newsletter is a great way to nurture and engage your email subscribers will developing your traffic and visibility.
Creating engaging newsletters with your curated content is really easy.